10 Of The Largest Animals In The World

When I walk in a museum or amusement, I always walk over to the big animals and stare at how big they are. When I watch Jurassic Park and other movies of a like nature, I am always fascinated by the dinosaurs towering over the humans. How much bigger than us are they and how did we ever compete against them. Let’s explore some of the biggest animals in the world, past and present, and see how we stack up against them.

In America, a football player is an example of a person that we all think of as big. The average football player weighs in at 248 pounds. A team of 11 hitting the field will weigh in at 2728 pounds. The entire National Football League fielding their teams at once will put 87,296 pounds out on the grass.

Tyrannosaurs Rex was one of largest of the dinosaur land predators. It was more than 40 feet long and 20 feet tall. It weighed 7.5 tons, or 15,000 pounds. We would need 5 ½ of our football teams to equal it in weight. T. Rex was once thought to have been the largest of the predators, but recent thinking puts the Spinosaurus at a slightly higher weight, 7-8 tons.

The largest living land predator today is the polar bear and the brown bear. These weigh in at 1 ton and are 9 feet tall. Although this sound likes a snack for T Rex, it would still take 8 of our football players to equal it in weight.

The salt water crocodile is the largest living reptile. This animal is normally 13-18 ft and 1,300 to 2,200 pounds. Habitats of this animal are threatened, and have hampered their growing to larger sizes. Recent years have seen the growth of some of their habitats and bigger animals may be alive. There are reports of crocodiles in the 25 – 30 foot range, but for the most part, unverified. If these animals were actually alive, their weight would be as much as 3,000 pounds or more.

The largest animal now alive is the African Elephant. Most of these beasts will weigh 5-6.5 tons. The largest recorded elephant topped 10 tons, or 20,000 pounds, beating out Tyrannosaurs Rex. The African Elephant measures about 12 feet at the shoulder.

A whale shark is the largest of the fishes. It will grow to 40 feet and weigh 75,000 pounds. Like the crocodile noted above, there have been reports of sighting of whale sharks that are almost twice as big as this, but again, they cannot be confirmed. Although these are sharks, they are not dangerous to humans. They feed almost like a whale. They are filter feeders. They feed on plankton and other small creatures. They will sometimes play with divers around them, but will largely ignore them.

The Argentinosaurus is the largest of the dinosaurs. Estimates vary for height and weight. Best hypothesis place it at 80-100 feet long from tip of tail to the tip of the head. Weight estimates are even harder to be correct with, but the current thoughts are that he weighed in at about 80 tons. This would make the Argentinosaurus the second heaviest creäture to roam the earth.

The blue whale is the largest animal to have ever been on earth. It dwarfs some of the other monsters. The Blue whale grows to over 80 feet in length, with the top specimen on record at 194 ft. The average animal weighs 120 tons, or 240,000 pounds. It is almost three times the weight of all the starting teams of the NFL. To get the same weight, we would need 987 of our average football players.

These animals are just a few of the big creatures that have, and are, roaming the earth. It is easy to be astounded at the variety of shape, size, temperament and other features that exist across the animal kingdom.